A WELSH boy born without an immune system was yesterday given a celebrity welcome at a charity fashion show.

Rhys Evans, four, from Nelson near Merthyr Tydfil, was given the name "bubble boy" because he had to spend his infant and toddler years in a completely sterile environment or face death. The slightest cough or sniffle could have killed him.

He was born with x-Scid and children with the condition generally do not live past their first birthday. But he was the first child to benefit from Great Ormond Street Hospital's specialist gene therapy.

At the hospital's Jeans for Genes High Street to Haute Couture Denim Fashion show in London he met stars Ben Shephard and Katy Hill.

The appeal is celebrating its 10th birthday.

Rhys's nightmare started when he was about four months old. His lips started to turn blue and he struggled to breathe. He was taken straight to hospital, where tests began.

The infant spent almost a month in intensive care in Cardiff on a life-support machine.

The best place for him to be treated was London's Great Ormond Street Hospital, but until he could build up the strength to travel, he couldn't be moved.

Even in isolation he managed to catch things picking up bugs a normal child could fight off.

In 2000 specialists researching his disease, funded by the charity Jeans for Genes, were ready to help a child suffering from x-Scid.

Rhys became the first in the UK and only the second in the world to receive gene therapy for x-Scid.